College and Finances

Normally, when we are talking about college and finances the focus is on finding a college that will be a good Financial Fit for the student/ family. But, today we want to talk about a different aspect of college and finances - the college's financial stability.

As school counselors, we spend a lot of our time reading, listening to, and attending workshops about all different aspects of supporting students with their pursuit of college. One of the aspects that has been fascinating, strange, scary, and definitely not what we expected to be learning about is the fact that there are colleges who are really struggling financially. And that can potentially have a really big impact on students.

Now, we don't want to create panic among anyone as you are considering colleges, but it is something that students and families should be aware of and it is a great place to ask questions of colleges to learn more. The reality is that when a student selects a 4-year college, they assume that they will graduate from that college. But if the school is in financial distress and ends up having to close while you are in college (which is rare, but happens) then students are left scrambling to figure out how and where to finish their degree. (The good news, is that when this has happened, other colleges have stepped up and provided paths to help support the students in the path towards their future.)

Forbes released a report about the college financial grades that they assigned based upon the financial standing of the school. They looked at over 900 private, non-profit, colleges who have at least 500 students. It is a fascinating wealth of information. Here is a link to the story/ report.

As I was playing around in the data, I sorted to look at all of the Ohio colleges. 14 of the Ohio private colleges have a D grade on their financial stability. The good news, is that 15 have grades of A's or B's so more of Ohio's colleges are in good standing than those struggling.

Once again, we want to caution you that you shouldn't just automatically remove a college who appears to have a low grade from your consideration, but it is worth including their status as a part of your information gathering when you are meeting with the college reps. I hope you enjoy messing around and exploring the data that Forbes has captured.